Hello and thank you for joining me today for this very special blog hop to stand up and show our unity against racism. You should have come from Juliana Michaels. Your next stop is Betz Golden. What I love about paper crafting, besides getting to play with stickers and fun stamps, is the supportive and inclusive community.  When Justine Hovey asked for participants to this blog hop I did not hesitate to sign up.The goal of this hop is to come together to stand with our crafty sisters and brothers of color not just in the paper crafting community, but also to show our support in the never ending fight for equality all over the world. I hope you feel inspired today and unite with the papercrafting community to stand against racism. Please continue reading to find out how I made three encouraging cards. Affiliate links are used at no cost to you. If you choose to shop through these links, I will receive a small commission. I am pledging my affiliate sales to Black Table Arts which organizes and brings in black artists into communities and provides creative spaces for leadership. Thank you for your support today. 

Hello Crafty Friends,
I am posting for the Altenew Educator Certification Program (AECP) blog hop. This hop is to honor those heroes who are on the front lines doing their job everyday to help all of us stay safe and healthy. Thank you for all you do. 

If you are continuing on the hop, you have just arrived from the fabulous, Vicki Finger. After my blog, you will continue onto the amazing, Nandini Karmarkar. The full hop list is at the end of this post. You will also find information about prizes because what is an Altenew Hop without prizes!

This is no ordinary hop! You can join in the fun as well. On the Altenew Card Blog, you can add your card to the Linky Party. Any cards you make based on the hop theme of "Giving Thanks" can be linked up. Make sure to mention that you are taking part in the Altenew Educators Blog Hop and Linky Party. We would love to see what you create; so Link on Up!

For this hop today, I focused on creating colorful backgrounds and keeping the floral images simple. These cards are quick to reproduce so you can send out a lot to say thanks to all of those amazing people on the front lines. Please continue on to learn more about my cards. Affiliate links are included within this post for your convience. 

Hello crafty friends. 
Thank you for joining me today on this blog hop to raise awareness for Ehlers Danlos Syndrome. EDS is a rare connective tissue disorder that can go undiagnosed and untreated. I want to thank my crafty friend, Natasha of Handmade by Tasha who organized this hop. 
If you are interested in more information about EDS, please check out:

• Ehlers-Danlos Society page
• EDS Blog post by Natasha Davies
• Why the zebra post by Natasha Davies
• Just giving blog post to donate to EDS.org

Thank you for your time and I hope this hop helps you to understand this rare condition.
To honor people to live with EDS everyday, I wanted to make some happy encouragement cards. Nothing says happy and shares hope like a rainbow. I made the rainbow paper using paper scraps. Please read along to learn how I made these cards.

Hello friends! Thank you for joining me on this hop to celebrate another amazing release from Altenew. I was really giddy over all of the items in this release and had so much inspiration. If you are following along on the hop, you have just come from the incredibly talented Erum Tasneem from VIBGYOR Krafts and your next stop is the wonderfully classic designs of Ashlea Cornell from Ashlea Crafts. Don't forget to leave a comment on the Altenew Card Blog and comments on each designers blog for your chance to win a gift card to Altenew. 

My favorites in this set are the paper. Although I love playing with stamps and doing a lot of techniques, I love paper. I decided to showcase the Cheerful Meadow 6x6 Paper Pack to show you how to get a lot of bang from these beautiful double sided papers. Read on for how I used this paper pack along with some other goodies in the release to make three cards.  For your convenience I have included affiliate links to the products I have used to make these products and some products were supplied by Altenew. 

Hello friends! Thank you for joining me for the Altenew Educator Program Blog hop - If you are following along on the hop, you have just come from the amazing Irina Fonina from CreativeScrapbooking. The next stop on the hop is the very creative Vicki Finger from Twinkling Paper Studio. A full list of the blogs are at the end of this post. If you get lost, please go back to the Altenew Card Blog. Make sure to leave some love on the Altenew Card blog and each of the blog stops along the way for a chance to win a gift certificate to Altenew so you can pick up your favorite floral set. 

Flowers have a language and can be used to send messages conveying friendship, love and support. Altenew is known for their amazing floral images.  In this post, I use Altenew's floral stamp sets to build cards to convey messages of: steadfast friendship, true love and hope. Please continue reading to learn about the language of flowers and how I put together these cards.

Hello and thank you for joining me on this blog hop to celebrate The Altenew Educator Program and Love & Friendship. If you are following along on the hop, you have come from the talented Nandini Karmarkar of Paint, Paper, Scissors. Your next stop on the blog is the amazing Christine Pennington. If you get lost along the way, see the full list on the Altenew Card Blog.
I am excited and honored to be a part of a very selective group of such talented people. The Altenew Educator Program really helped me to gain confidence in my card making and helped set me on a path to teach others about the joy in making and sending cards. Each amazing Altenew Academy class taught me how to improve my skills and introduced me to new ways of looking at my crafting supplies. The support from the Altenew Educator Program Coordinators really helps boost your confidence, improve your card designs, as well as your photography and blogging skills. Watercoloring is a medium I struggled with but the Altenew Academy has three great watercolor classes that helped me to improve my skills: Watercolor Basics and Beyond, Watercolor Creative Media and Stunningly Simple Watercolor Techniques. I took all three of these classes and they were wonderful. 

Today I will be featuring the Altenew watercolor pan set which is a 36 half pan watercolor set that coordinates perfectly with the Altenew Inks. I made three cards for this blog hop that feature three ways to watercolor: with black pigment ink, white heat embossing and no line. Thank you for joining me on this hop to celebrate the Altenew Educator Program.

I recently met a crafty friend on line and we met up to craft together. She introduced me to a great Birch Press Layered die, Adora. I’ve loved Birch Press dies but just hadn't ever used them so I quickly grabbed three colors of paper out of my scrap stash and die cut them. The Adora die has a repeating heart pattern and after I cut out the patterns, I was left with all these colorful hearts. I didn't want to waste them so I decided to make some cards but needed white as a neutral to go with my color palette. I grabbed the Altenew Radial Hearts cover die which has a repeating heart pattern and cut out a piece of Neenah solar white. I saved all these heart pieces and decided to use them on a card. Well I ended up making 5 cards and would like to explain how I made them using dies and leftovers. Please read on and note that affiliate links are used in this post. If you decide to purchase the items through these links, I get a small commission at no cost to you. Thank you for your support.

In November of 2018, I embarked on a journey where I was not sure was going to lead; I became a participant in the Altenew Educator Certification Program. For the past 5 months I have been steadily working towards certification under the guidance and tutelage of Virginia Lu and Erum Tasneem who have been so gracious with their time and positive feedback. Throughout this journey, I have taken 25 classes at Altenew Academy, made 44 cards, one tag, four framed pieces of art and now taught one class. I feel proud of my accomplishments and happy to be able to share a love of crafty techniques to my friends and get them excited to try something new. Please read on for how the class went, the fun we had and what the students learned in the class. If you would like to read about how I prepared for the class, click here. Affiliate links are used in this post. If you choose to purchase through these links, I may receive a small commission at no cost to you. Thank you for your support.

For the final challenge of the Altenew Educator Certification Program, I will be teaching a 2 hour card class full of techniques to 4-10 people. After the class, I will be blogging about how it went but I wanted to do a post before the class to discuss building an idea, setting up for a class and figuring how to break down ideas and make them accessible to others. Please read on for how I plan on teaching this class.

Since starting last November with the Altenew Educator Certification Program, I have made 42 cards, four pieces of home decor and one tag using supplies from Altenew. I’ve enjoyed this journey and every class I took through Altenew Academy. I am currently working my way through Level 3 Certification and this last class for the Altenew Educator Program was Sentiments with Impact. I looked forward to this class as cards need sentiments and having the right thing to say or the right way to say it sometimes gets lost behind the technique or the main image on the card. The instructor focused on using sentiments in different ways to make them the main focus on a card. I was intrigued by stacking sentiments and using different stamps that say the same thing to provide impact to the message. For today’s card I used small sentiments from four different Altenew stamp sets to create a background. Please continue reading to learn how I put together this card. For your convenience the materials I used are listed at the bottom of this post. Affiliate links are used at no cost to you. If you decide to purchase through these links I may receive a small commission thank you for your support.